Maggie Stone (Elizabeth Hendrickson)

Maggie was Frankie’s twin sister, introduced soon after Frankie’s death. Maggie became friends with Bianca, often defending her when she was bullied by homophobic classmates. Throughout Maggie’s years on the series, the writers kept her sexual orientation ambiguous in nature. The series featured her dating several men, taking a few of them to bed, sometimes out of confusion and other times out of a clear attempt to dispel her growing romantic attraction to Bianca.

In a confrontational episode where a sexually frustrated Bianca finally asked Maggie to define what they were to each other, Maggie, after some avoidance, stated that, romantically, she was “into guys” and only guys and moved on with new male character Henry Chin. Hendrickson stated her dissatisfaction with Maggie becoming romantically involved with a man a week after Maggie’s confrontation with Bianca, and was perplexed by the show’s treatment of Maggie’s sexuality: “Maggie was asexual for a long time. It was frustrating, and I was getting confused how I should play it.”

Coming out

Maggie eventually accepted her sexual attraction to Bianca. Alone with Bianca on a sofa in her apartment, she confessed to being in love with her and confronted the truth about her sexuality ‘Did I just come out? […] Am I gay, or is it just you? Am I a straight girl who has a crush on a gay friend? Or am I gay and sleeping with guys to prove that I’m not?’. Following Maggie’s coming out, Hendrickson feared viewers would no longer care about Maggie’s struggle to understand her unfolding sexual identity. In response to this, a soap opera columnist assured, “not only do we still care, we care more than ever.”

At the time, Bianca was in a romance with Lena Kundera. She declared her commitment to Lena, and Maggie was left feeling rejected. Maggie’s next romance was with character Jonathan Lavery, a relationship brought on by her hurt feelings. Maggie and Jonathan’s romance was new territory for Hendrickson, as her character’s sexual activity increased:

“Because I play a sexually confused character, I have not had to do a lot of sex scenes. Maggie lost her virginity to Henry in her dorm room, and it was PC, pretty chaste. Well, not with Jonathan!”

The relationship with Jonathan turned abusive, until Maggie finally accepted Bianca’s help and broke it off. Bianca and Maggie left Pine Valley in 2005 and became lovers (off-screen) and were happy together (off-screen) until 2007, when Bianca returned to Pine Valley alone. She revealed Maggie cheated on her with another woman. Maggie followed her, hoping for reconciliation, but despite loving her, Bianca declined.

Appearances:

Regular 2002–05, 2007

Female love interests:

Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel, lesbian, main cast)

Relationship story arc with a woman: Questionable (off-screen)

Male love interests:

Henry Chin (Ivan Shaw, guest, 8 episodes)

Jamie Martin (Justin Bruening, main cast,163 episodes)

Jonathan Lavery (Jeff Branson, main cast, 154 episodes)

Relationship story arc with a man: Yes

Male love interest after being identified as a lesbian? Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.